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Syril Levin Kline

Shakespeare's Changeling

Synopsis

Charged in 1616 by the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery to edit a folio of Shakespeare plays, writer Ben Jonson races against time to find the missing manuscripts by seeking out his former nemesis in Stratford. Can William Shaxper's deathbed confession reveal the mysteries of the Shakespeare authorship that could threaten the throne of King James I?

Author Biography

I am an author and educator who believes that writers create within the context of their own experience. By helping students connect the real Shake-speare with his life and works, we enable them to see relationships in their own learning, thinking and writing. Was there more than one Shake-speare, or was he really Lord Oxford, a known writer of his time forced to hide behind his distant kinsman, a grain merchant from Stratford? Not sure? Read my controversial novel and think about it.

Author Insight

A writer with something to hide

You are a writer with something to hide, and no royal edict will protect you. A new king sits on the throne who will not show you the same love the late lamented Queen bestowed on her favorite courtier playwright. Now your literary master is dead, and so is your career. As his front man, you've purloined his papers and have returned home to hide them, hoping to cash in on them one day and claim them as your own. After all, you posed as the famous playwright for so long, everyone believed that you were. And you were so convincing, you even began to believe it yourself.

Book Excerpt

Shakespeare's Changeling

The wailing of Hamnet Sadler’s mongrel bitch pierced the stillness of the midsummer night, increasing the terror of the exhausted rider who had just returned home.

William Shaxper slid from his horse and looked furtively over his shoulder as he clutched a leather portfolio to his chest. He fancied the full moon glowering down at him with a prosecutor’s scowl. He ran to the front door and pressed his cheek against it. He heard nothing except the incessant howling of his friend’s dog. His hands trembled as he rummaged for his key, found it and turned it in the lock.

Luckily, the King’s men hadn’t pursued him - or perhaps they had yet to arrive. He nervously unlocked the door and stepped inside, closing it behind him with the full weight of his anxiety. Breathing heavily, eyes darting wildly, he called out to his wife.

“Anne? Are you home?”

Silence. Relief. The house at New Place was empty.

It will be easier to hide the treasure this way, without any witnesses . . . Like a parent protectively shielding a child from harm, he hugged the portfolio to his chest. With the glowing embers in the kitchen hearth, he lit a small lantern and carried it up three flights of stairs to the attic. He locked the door behind him, just in case, and set the bundle down among the discarded family relics that lay barely illuminated by the scant moonlight. He rummaged for a place to hide his contraband and remembered the loose floorboards under the north window where he had hidden other manuscripts he had collected from his master over the years.